Question: The volume of the parallelepiped determined by the three-dimensional vectors $\mathbf{a}$, $\mathbf{b}$, and $\mathbf{c}$ is 4.  Find the volume of the parallelepiped determined by the vectors $\mathbf{a} + \mathbf{b},$ $\mathbf{b} + 3 \mathbf{c},$ and $\mathbf{c} - 7 \mathbf{a}.$
Solution: From the given information, $|\mathbf{a} \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c})| = 4.$  We want to compute
\[|(\mathbf{a} + \mathbf{b}) \cdot ((\mathbf{b} +  3\mathbf{c}) \times (\mathbf{c} - 7 \mathbf{a}))|.\]Expanding the cross product, we get
\begin{align*}
(\mathbf{b} +  3\mathbf{c}) \times (\mathbf{c} - 7 \mathbf{a}) &= \mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c} - 7 \mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{a} + 3 \mathbf{c} \times \mathbf{c} - 21 \mathbf{c} \times \mathbf{a} \\
&= \mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c} - 7 \mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{a} - 21 \mathbf{c} \times \mathbf{a}.
\end{align*}Then
\begin{align*}
(\mathbf{a} + \mathbf{b}) \cdot ((\mathbf{b} +  3\mathbf{c}) \times (\mathbf{c} - 7 \mathbf{a})) &= (\mathbf{a} + \mathbf{b}) \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c} - 7 \mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{a} - 21 \mathbf{c} \times \mathbf{a}) \\
&= \mathbf{a} \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c}) - 7 \mathbf{a} \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{a}) - 21 \mathbf{a} \cdot (\mathbf{c} \times \mathbf{a}) \\
&\quad + \mathbf{b} \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c}) - 7 \mathbf{b} \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{a}) - 21 \mathbf{b} \cdot (\mathbf{c} \times \mathbf{a}).
\end{align*}Since $\mathbf{a}$ and $\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{a}$ are orthogonal, their dot product is 0.  Similar terms vanish, and we are left with
\[\mathbf{a} \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c}) - 21 \mathbf{b} \cdot (\mathbf{c} \times \mathbf{a}).\]By the scalar triple product, $\mathbf{b} \cdot (\mathbf{c} \times \mathbf{a}) = \mathbf{a} \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c}),$ so the volume of the new parallelepiped is $|-20 \mathbf{a} \cdot (\mathbf{b} \times \mathbf{c})| = 20 \cdot 4 = \boxed{80}.$